creating a new party

[minmay]

in Grimrock 1 I remember a trap where a crab (or 2?) was spawned behind you and you had to face tank it (may be it was possible to escape somehow but then I did it the hard way!).

All you need to beat crabs in Grimrock 1 is two squares in front of the crab. They have some of the slowest framedata in the game, you can simply react to their attack and move back to avoid the damage. There's definitely no need to get hit by them in that trap.

In Isle of Nex there are only 3 places where you are put into a position where you can't easily avoid damage without using consumables: the cemetery pit with the skull (iirc, might be the one with the treasure note), the ancient claymore room, and the arquebus room. All 3 are optional, invisibility mostly nullifies the ancient claymore room, and the arquebus room only has the weakest monster in the game.

[Dr.Disaster]

If you're getting hit 5+ times in a fight then there is a serious problem with your damage output. The monsters should be dead long before that can happen. I can really only think of 2-3 places in Isle of Nex where you should be taking even 1 hit. But I suppose if you decided to focus on protection instead of something that actually helps end fights faster, that's not surprising.

Taking less than a handful of hits for the entire Isle of Nex is a pretty bold statement. For example it just takes fast to very fast enemies like a Shrak Torr to put the party in trouble and when they bring multiple attacks too like Mosquitos being hit 5+ times happens pretty fast.

Of course invisibility smoothens things out a LOT but is going "invisible" -> "attack" -> "invisible" -> "attack" ... any fun? I don't need a front row at all to play that way.

[FennerMachine]

What about Farmer?
Extra skill points early and by end.
If used correctly, such as mage/alchemy hybrid it frees up skills for another party memeber that would have had alchemy.

[Azel]

Getting hit 5 times or more in a fight just means your actually playing the game instead of "cheesing" your way through it. Square Dancing is not a strategy anyone should boast of, and if your entire gameplay experience revolves around Square Dancing then it doesn't matter which character class you take.

I assume most of you have seen the Speedrun Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSOA2EP3w5I

The player beat the entire game without making it beyond level 6 for a character class. It was 3 Barbarians and a single Wizard. Based on the postings in this thread, that's 3 of the most powerful character class with the most useless class as a backup.

As far as Knights go, I love them. At high levels they serve as great Tanks that can take a lot of damage (and properly avoid it) before ever having to be healed. I personally prefer to stand and fight even against hordes of monsters instead of kiting or square dancing. Knights allow for this better than any other class in LoG 2.

[Isaac]

Square dancing is irrelevant (and not an exploit). The monsters are there to kill by attrition; the party will die off [generally] not from one fight, but from many, and of getting caught in a bad state ~unrecovered; or by egregious player mistakes, like backing into a dead-end. On the whole they are supposed to usually win any fight.

Standing ground and striking hit for hit ~is the tactic not to boast of IMO. Its a case where gameplay trumps [unintended] realism. The fights are abstracted by by design.

[Azel]

I wasn't "boasting" of standing ground (aka Tanking), perhaps you may want to look up what boasting means lol

My point is that if someone chooses to play with a Tank backed by DPS, then there is no reason to ridicule the strategy. It's extremely common in RPG settings, moreso than Square Dancing or Kiting. There are entire genres that are centered around Tanks backed by DPS (Baldurs Gate, IceWind Dale, Pillars of Eternity, just about every single MMORPG raid, etc)

I do consider square dancing to be an exploit of a grid-based system, which is why someone was able to beat Grimrock 2 in 1 hour with a level 6 team. But that's my personal opinion; clearly some of your consider it a talent

Although if you think Tanking trumps realism whereas Square Dancing in a Grid is somehow realistic... then lol

[Isaac]

?

I did not claim that you were boasting.
I said, "Standing ground and striking hit for hit ~is the tactic not to boast of IMO".

[Azel]

Well my mistake if I misunderstood your meaning. But you made that statement after I said,

Square Dancing is not a strategy anyone should boast of
...
I personally prefer to stand and fight even against hordes of monsters instead of kiting or square dancing

I thought you were accusing that of being boastful

I think the main point of this thread is in regards to discussing different group builds that may be useful (per the OP's request). The term "useful" should likely pertain to more than just highest DPS, and all strategies can be equally comparable and represented:

1) Ranged groups for kiting
2) Pure DPS groups for square dancing
3) Tank groups for standing ground

All that is truly lacking is crowd control and buffs/debuffs in order to add Utility group builds to the mix

ForceField and Invisibility don't really count, imo

[Isaac]

All that is truly lacking is crowd control and buffs/debuffs in order to add Utility group builds to the mix

Have you played ORRR2? You should try playing the arena into the upper 30's to 60's.

ForceField and Invisibility don't really count, imo

They sure do count in my opinion; that's exactly why they are PC castable spells effects.

[Azel]

Well of course you think that Invisibility and ForceField count as Utility, mister. What don't you think counts as everything proper in Grimrock?

In my opinion, Invisibility and ForceField are far too "blunt" an approach to Utility. They either can't see you, or they can't touch you; and all single target. Better approaches to Stun and Knockback would be a warm welcome. Implementing a form of Knockdown, and more importantly: AoE Debuff's are essential for Utility.

But I know you don't really care for strategies and implementations outside of Grid-based dungeon crawling.